TFTP Flow: Commercial Break from ABC Thursday Night Movie (Jul. 21, 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 3:45

Television "flow"  =  an unbroken, as-aired sequence of elements such as program segments, news breaks, commercials, program promos, station IDs, and bumpers, which can be analyzed to understand what viewers of the past experienced when watching TV.

This flow sequence is from the ABC Thursday Night Movie, which on this particular Thursday night in July 1983 featured the animated version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Return of the King". The sequence begins with the teaser for the movie before continuing with a commercial break. The ads in the break are a group of summer-appropriate ones: for toilet cleaner Sani-Flush (set in a summer camp), "Jaws 3-D" (in movie theatres at the time as a summer blockbuster wanna-be), Hallmark Cards (for the summer wedding anniversary season), and Wendy's Restaurant (emphasizing drive-thru service). The flow then returns to the Thursday Night Movie for the first thirty seconds or so of the movie (including an "Edited for Television" tag).

TFTP Special: Sign-Off on WTVJ (Miami) (1980)

The very first TFTP post a few weeks ago was a TV station sign-on used at the beginning of the broadcast day. Here is its counterpart, a sign-off, the segment of programming at the very end of the broadcast day--from when stations used to actually sign off and go off the air overnight. Many sign-offs included a brief news update (this one does not) and they almost universally featured a brief film or tape segment of the U.S. national anthem (as this one does). This sign-off from 1980 also includes a few program promos (including for a CBS TV broadcast of the movie "Rocky") and a couple of public service announcements (PSAs), which stations often loaded into this late-night period.  It's from station WTVJ in Miami, Florida's first TV station (launching in 1949), which at this time was on Channel 4 and was a CBS affiliate but has since switched to Channel 6 and NBC.